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Progress is slow, but I'll take it...
Dec. 18th, 2006 08:58 am4.8 miles in 45 minutes = a sustained 6.4 MPH...
Dec. 18th, 2006
Progress is slow, but I'll take it...
Dec. 18th, 2006 08:58 am4.8 miles in 45 minutes = a sustained 6.4 MPH...
Winter Bardic Ball
Dec. 18th, 2006 01:05 pmBefore I forget, a few notes on this weekend's event.
Overall, a very pleasant day. It started quite slowly ("SCA standard time" is turning pathological, I fear, and I don't like the trend), but once it really was going everyone seemed to have fun. The Baron's Bard competition was small but select: four entrants, all of whom I would have been content to see win. (There were also other performers afterwards, who weren't vying for the retinue spot, as well as a performance by I Sebastiani.)
The schedule was a bit experimental, but worked well.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
new_man, as head cook, wanted to do a long sideboard during the performances and the dancing, with the food concentrated towards mid-afternoon; I encouraged this, and hfcougar went for it. I like the effect: less of a rush to the food, and less disruption from it. In particular, I think it worked very well with the dancing -- instead of having everyone fill up on a heavy meal and then go home afterwards, they had a chance to digest the bulk before the dancing started, and could nip out for noshes during it. As a result, we had a really great crowd on the dance floor -- enough people to feel like we were using the space well, without being jammed in. I wouldn't want to run every event this way, but I think it proved itself to be a good option.
I was pretty busy during the day: besides running the dancing in the evening, I taught some games during the afternoon -- would up playing Ruff and Trump, Picket and Mancala with various folks. Hadn't really played Mancala before: it's definitely period, but not European, so it hasn't been much on my radar. (Mancala is to Africa as Chess is to Europe and Go is to Asia.) But it's fun, and the strategies are clearly subtler than I'd originally given them credit for. Need to play more of that. I also wound up as Acting Herald for the day, since none of the specialists were there: I've sort of fallen into the role of pinch-hit Court Herald when needed, because I find it reasonably fun and easy.
So quite a good time all around. Kudos to the autocrat, cooks, and everyone else who pulled this together...
Overall, a very pleasant day. It started quite slowly ("SCA standard time" is turning pathological, I fear, and I don't like the trend), but once it really was going everyone seemed to have fun. The Baron's Bard competition was small but select: four entrants, all of whom I would have been content to see win. (There were also other performers afterwards, who weren't vying for the retinue spot, as well as a performance by I Sebastiani.)
The schedule was a bit experimental, but worked well.
new_man, as head cook, wanted to do a long sideboard during the performances and the dancing, with the food concentrated towards mid-afternoon; I encouraged this, and hfcougar went for it. I like the effect: less of a rush to the food, and less disruption from it. In particular, I think it worked very well with the dancing -- instead of having everyone fill up on a heavy meal and then go home afterwards, they had a chance to digest the bulk before the dancing started, and could nip out for noshes during it. As a result, we had a really great crowd on the dance floor -- enough people to feel like we were using the space well, without being jammed in. I wouldn't want to run every event this way, but I think it proved itself to be a good option.I was pretty busy during the day: besides running the dancing in the evening, I taught some games during the afternoon -- would up playing Ruff and Trump, Picket and Mancala with various folks. Hadn't really played Mancala before: it's definitely period, but not European, so it hasn't been much on my radar. (Mancala is to Africa as Chess is to Europe and Go is to Asia.) But it's fun, and the strategies are clearly subtler than I'd originally given them credit for. Need to play more of that. I also wound up as Acting Herald for the day, since none of the specialists were there: I've sort of fallen into the role of pinch-hit Court Herald when needed, because I find it reasonably fun and easy.
So quite a good time all around. Kudos to the autocrat, cooks, and everyone else who pulled this together...
Winter Bardic Ball
Dec. 18th, 2006 01:05 pmBefore I forget, a few notes on this weekend's event.
Overall, a very pleasant day. It started quite slowly ("SCA standard time" is turning pathological, I fear, and I don't like the trend), but once it really was going everyone seemed to have fun. The Baron's Bard competition was small but select: four entrants, all of whom I would have been content to see win. (There were also other performers afterwards, who weren't vying for the retinue spot, as well as a performance by I Sebastiani.)
The schedule was a bit experimental, but worked well.new_man, as head cook, wanted to do a long sideboard during the performances and the dancing, with the food concentrated towards mid-afternoon; I encouraged this, and hfcougar went for it. I like the effect: less of a rush to the food, and less disruption from it. In particular, I think it worked very well with the dancing -- instead of having everyone fill up on a heavy meal and then go home afterwards, they had a chance to digest the bulk before the dancing started, and could nip out for noshes during it. As a result, we had a really great crowd on the dance floor -- enough people to feel like we were using the space well, without being jammed in. I wouldn't want to run every event this way, but I think it proved itself to be a good option.
I was pretty busy during the day: besides running the dancing in the evening, I taught some games during the afternoon -- would up playing Ruff and Trump, Picket and Mancala with various folks. Hadn't really played Mancala before: it's definitely period, but not European, so it hasn't been much on my radar. (Mancala is to Africa as Chess is to Europe and Go is to Asia.) But it's fun, and the strategies are clearly subtler than I'd originally given them credit for. Need to play more of that. I also wound up as Acting Herald for the day, since none of the specialists were there: I've sort of fallen into the role of pinch-hit Court Herald when needed, because I find it reasonably fun and easy.
So quite a good time all around. Kudos to the autocrat, cooks, and everyone else who pulled this together...
Overall, a very pleasant day. It started quite slowly ("SCA standard time" is turning pathological, I fear, and I don't like the trend), but once it really was going everyone seemed to have fun. The Baron's Bard competition was small but select: four entrants, all of whom I would have been content to see win. (There were also other performers afterwards, who weren't vying for the retinue spot, as well as a performance by I Sebastiani.)
The schedule was a bit experimental, but worked well.
new_man, as head cook, wanted to do a long sideboard during the performances and the dancing, with the food concentrated towards mid-afternoon; I encouraged this, and hfcougar went for it. I like the effect: less of a rush to the food, and less disruption from it. In particular, I think it worked very well with the dancing -- instead of having everyone fill up on a heavy meal and then go home afterwards, they had a chance to digest the bulk before the dancing started, and could nip out for noshes during it. As a result, we had a really great crowd on the dance floor -- enough people to feel like we were using the space well, without being jammed in. I wouldn't want to run every event this way, but I think it proved itself to be a good option.I was pretty busy during the day: besides running the dancing in the evening, I taught some games during the afternoon -- would up playing Ruff and Trump, Picket and Mancala with various folks. Hadn't really played Mancala before: it's definitely period, but not European, so it hasn't been much on my radar. (Mancala is to Africa as Chess is to Europe and Go is to Asia.) But it's fun, and the strategies are clearly subtler than I'd originally given them credit for. Need to play more of that. I also wound up as Acting Herald for the day, since none of the specialists were there: I've sort of fallen into the role of pinch-hit Court Herald when needed, because I find it reasonably fun and easy.
So quite a good time all around. Kudos to the autocrat, cooks, and everyone else who pulled this together...
And I don't mean "how many people have read this page?" -- I'm musing about, literally, when we're going to have our computers start really paying attention to the user's eyes.
I was thinking about that as I was proofing my last entry. When I wanted to change a word, I exited proofing mode, used the mouse to go to the right position, backspaced over the word, and used the keyboard to re-enter it. But what I really wanted was to simply say, "strike 'fill' and replace it with 'feel'", and have the computer know which word I was talking about.
I'm sure it's *possible* -- it just requires combining good speech-sensitive editing capabilities with a camera sensitive enough to track the user's eye movements, and well-enough aligned with the screen to serve as a pointer. (I envision an alignment UI sort of like the one you get when you boot a Palm PDA -- "Look at this dot. Now look at this dot.") Not easy, but I suspect it's feasible with current high-end technology, and ought to become more straightforward as camera tech improves.
The mouse is a nice tool, and good for precision work, but a hassle to use most of the time -- you have to stop whatever you're doing with your hands to use it. Geeks use keyboard shortcuts instead, but I suspect that we're going to see the emergence of alternatives better-suited to mass use. Minority Report style virtual displays are one approach (especially if you think the keyboard itself will go away), but eye tracking seems to have a lot of potential for very intuitively doing what you want...
I was thinking about that as I was proofing my last entry. When I wanted to change a word, I exited proofing mode, used the mouse to go to the right position, backspaced over the word, and used the keyboard to re-enter it. But what I really wanted was to simply say, "strike 'fill' and replace it with 'feel'", and have the computer know which word I was talking about.
I'm sure it's *possible* -- it just requires combining good speech-sensitive editing capabilities with a camera sensitive enough to track the user's eye movements, and well-enough aligned with the screen to serve as a pointer. (I envision an alignment UI sort of like the one you get when you boot a Palm PDA -- "Look at this dot. Now look at this dot.") Not easy, but I suspect it's feasible with current high-end technology, and ought to become more straightforward as camera tech improves.
The mouse is a nice tool, and good for precision work, but a hassle to use most of the time -- you have to stop whatever you're doing with your hands to use it. Geeks use keyboard shortcuts instead, but I suspect that we're going to see the emergence of alternatives better-suited to mass use. Minority Report style virtual displays are one approach (especially if you think the keyboard itself will go away), but eye tracking seems to have a lot of potential for very intuitively doing what you want...
And I don't mean "how many people have read this page?" -- I'm musing about, literally, when we're going to have our computers start really paying attention to the user's eyes.
I was thinking about that as I was proofing my last entry. When I wanted to change a word, I exited proofing mode, used the mouse to go to the right position, backspaced over the word, and used the keyboard to re-enter it. But what I really wanted was to simply say, "strike 'fill' and replace it with 'feel'", and have the computer know which word I was talking about.
I'm sure it's *possible* -- it just requires combining good speech-sensitive editing capabilities with a camera sensitive enough to track the user's eye movements, and well-enough aligned with the screen to serve as a pointer. (I envision an alignment UI sort of like the one you get when you boot a Palm PDA -- "Look at this dot. Now look at this dot.") Not easy, but I suspect it's feasible with current high-end technology, and ought to become more straightforward as camera tech improves.
The mouse is a nice tool, and good for precision work, but a hassle to use most of the time -- you have to stop whatever you're doing with your hands to use it. Geeks use keyboard shortcuts instead, but I suspect that we're going to see the emergence of alternatives better-suited to mass use. Minority Report style virtual displays are one approach (especially if you think the keyboard itself will go away), but eye tracking seems to have a lot of potential for very intuitively doing what you want...
I was thinking about that as I was proofing my last entry. When I wanted to change a word, I exited proofing mode, used the mouse to go to the right position, backspaced over the word, and used the keyboard to re-enter it. But what I really wanted was to simply say, "strike 'fill' and replace it with 'feel'", and have the computer know which word I was talking about.
I'm sure it's *possible* -- it just requires combining good speech-sensitive editing capabilities with a camera sensitive enough to track the user's eye movements, and well-enough aligned with the screen to serve as a pointer. (I envision an alignment UI sort of like the one you get when you boot a Palm PDA -- "Look at this dot. Now look at this dot.") Not easy, but I suspect it's feasible with current high-end technology, and ought to become more straightforward as camera tech improves.
The mouse is a nice tool, and good for precision work, but a hassle to use most of the time -- you have to stop whatever you're doing with your hands to use it. Geeks use keyboard shortcuts instead, but I suspect that we're going to see the emergence of alternatives better-suited to mass use. Minority Report style virtual displays are one approach (especially if you think the keyboard itself will go away), but eye tracking seems to have a lot of potential for very intuitively doing what you want...
A precious case from Middle Earth
Dec. 18th, 2006 04:13 pmThanks to yukirien for pointing me at this psychiatric analysis of Gollum. Brief, and well worth the read. (As are the voluminous comments people have posted in response, which range from counterpoint analyses of Gollum's pathology as it would be diagnosed by traditional Chinese medicine to discussion of the ethical violations present in an article that talks so specifically about an individual's case...)
yukirien for pointing me at this psychiatric analysis of Gollum. Brief, and well worth the read. (As are the voluminous comments people have posted in response, which range from counterpoint analyses of Gollum's pathology as it would be diagnosed by traditional Chinese medicine to discussion of the ethical violations present in an article that talks so specifically about an individual's case...)A precious case from Middle Earth
Dec. 18th, 2006 04:13 pmThanks to yukirien for pointing me at this psychiatric analysis of Gollum. Brief, and well worth the read. (As are the voluminous comments people have posted in response, which range from counterpoint analyses of Gollum's pathology as it would be diagnosed by traditional Chinese medicine to discussion of the ethical violations present in an article that talks so specifically about an individual's case...)
yukirien for pointing me at this psychiatric analysis of Gollum. Brief, and well worth the read. (As are the voluminous comments people have posted in response, which range from counterpoint analyses of Gollum's pathology as it would be diagnosed by traditional Chinese medicine to discussion of the ethical violations present in an article that talks so specifically about an individual's case...)Donations to Wikipedia
Dec. 18th, 2006 04:57 pmI just discovered that the Wikimedia Foundation has gotten its act together (proper books, 501(c)3 status, etc), and is holding a fundraising drive. Those who use Wikipedia as much as I do might want to consider a donation: I think it's an invaluable resource (I use it a couple of times a week for work), and their hosting expenses ran over $600k last year. For more info, check out their FAQ, or just go to any random Wikipedia page -- they've all got it as a header at the moment...
Donations to Wikipedia
Dec. 18th, 2006 04:57 pmI just discovered that the Wikimedia Foundation has gotten its act together (proper books, 501(c)3 status, etc), and is holding a fundraising drive. Those who use Wikipedia as much as I do might want to consider a donation: I think it's an invaluable resource (I use it a couple of times a week for work), and their hosting expenses ran over $600k last year. For more info, check out their FAQ, or just go to any random Wikipedia page -- they've all got it as a header at the moment...